Wrapping & Turning: Soft Power of Thread ● The power of wisdom is what Ariadne's thread in the Greek mythology demonstrates. Theseus, to deliver Athenians as sacrificial lambs to the Minotauros - a monster who lives in the Labyrinth – presented himself to go with the Athenians who will be sacrificed, to fight against Minotauros. It is to everybody's confession that the existence of such a monster was a bloodcurdling entity. However, it is to one's knowledge that there was a thing which was as much terrifying as the monster, and it was the Labyrinth, a complicated web of meandering passages, that King Minos of Crete had Daedelus built and designed to break loose from confinement such an impossible route to take. In the hopes of winning the fight, Adriadne handed Theseus a knife and a thread with a surge of optimism that these will aid Theseus in combat with the monster. With all might and bravery, Theseus was able to kill the monster with the use of the knife that Adriadne gave, and has escaped from the Labyrinth with the help of the thread that he had unwind through the Labyrinth, to Adriadne's advice.
● And it is to this remark that the thin and long string of thread turns into a symbol of wisdom due to its suppleness. And as Ariadne gave thread to Thesues. There is a woman by the name of Lee Nam-hee, who sheds light to people living in this mechanical and authoritative era by suggesting thread. An artist with peculiar ideas in expressing her art as she takes on the material "knit" that there is an imaginative power going beyond the physical force. Let's take a look at her soft and supple threads.
● Lee has developed her art profoundly in terms of unfolding her personal experiences, as previously, for the last four years by the use of the masking tape - quite an eccentric material. She has constructed a work that's surely unique, by pasting together masking tape rolled up with hands as if it is a long coil of clay. The rolled up masking tape was combined elaborately and diverged into sundry commonplace objects that can be found everywhere such as clothes, bottle, TV, toilets, etc. When each unit was assembled with one another physically, looking at it, you will think of bee hives in terms of hue and composition. Lee regarded masking tape as something that resembles bee hives as it may be interpreted into a container of little fragments adrift on the sea of memory. And with it, she reflected and visualized on the experiences she has had in her past memories.
● Lee, as she continues to keep on unfolding her very own experiences with her work of art, she has moved into such great lengths by introducing a new material, that's definitely another unique one and will surely capture the world after being recovered from autographic experiences.
● In reality, people would consider knit as something that's very familiar as it is one of the things that many people use throughout their lifetime. Every household keeps at least one if not more of knitted items, be it clothing or a furniture cover. Knit for most people is being used to keep their bodies warm to survive a cold winter day, but knit nowadays has reached farther distances in the field of fashion and living design for interior home concepts. Its characteristics and ornamental effects have somehow comforted its users in terms of expression on the way they dress and their level of status through the weaving patterns and methods and colors being used.
● To Lee, knit can be regarded into three important points, first – as a medium which allows her to incorporate her childhood memory and experiences, growing up with family and friends and life, how it unfolded its mysteries. Second – as a symbol of maternity and femininity, how knit could console a soul and keep our bodies warm in a cold and dreary weather. And lastly, a tool for challenge towards the world and all the enigmatic forces that seem to linger in our lives brought by the anonymity of the universe.
● The way she visualized her childhood memories was done by using masking tape as a medium. A balloon was hanging on a chair in Dream 2008, hovering and suspended in mid-air which also appeared in Daydream 2010 as well, with a different twist however, injecting a new complete set of creativity and wisdom behind it. The balloon is of new material which was knit, while it was constituted with masking tape in Dream 2008. Far more different from the masking tape as it has a restricted range of milky color, the different colors of threads exhibit exuberance as they appeared audaciously weaved through in perfect patterns.
● She has a childhood memory that seems to linger in her mind, going back to the time when she and her family went to a zoo park which is ChangGyeongWon, she remembered vividly how her mother tied a balloon to her wrist and she let it stayed until she was about to go to bed only to find out that it had blown off as she was untying it, and it was gone with the blown pieces. In Daydream, the balloon has streaks of red and green colors and it is hanging on a white chair evoking the memory of a knitted cloth her mother had worn often when she was young, a mnemonic piece of art.
● She had chosen balloon as a symbol of exclusive property of children, how children adore balloons and how their faces light up when handed over a balloon. Hope emanates and resembles a promising day when a child sees a balloon. And it brings up happy and cherished memories worth reminiscing, interpreted in the form of knit. Along with the yearnings for what has passed, the sense of frustration toward the blown-off balloon seemed to reflect an irrevocable past of every adult and their desperate longing toward a lost thing. Ergo, it was represented by tying it into a chair so that neither it will blow off nor it will fly away and get lost in the distant horizon.
● Father's Chair is represented at the same point with Daydream as it addresses childhood memory and past experiences. This work showcases afterimage of her father who passed away. The chair serves as a tool to ascertain an authority that fathers have gained on their names as well as the affection that she got from him. In his absence, the love she had from him is metaphorically visualized through the comfort of warm and snug wool reinforcing his presence within her memory, as if her father's embrace and protection are coiling through her.
● The next one is the symbolic aspect of knit as maternity and femininity. It is to everyone's knowledge how the role of women can be considered into two important aspects, one as the light of every home and we can surely relate to our mothers who comfort us in everything that we go through and give us unconditional love and two as an unsung hero in the society. What led her to choose knit as her main material in her exploration of femininity? It is best explained by herself in the excerpt below:
"I wanted to address image of women denigrated among those in power with imagery with positivity and broadmindedness. For this reason, knitwork was chosen as its noticeable characteristic to reflect femininity, and it is meaningful to associate art with knitwork which was often regarded as craft not art."
As seen in her comment, women's image in political aspect has its sort of negativity as it is drawn mainly on seeing women as an inferior sex. Despite the negative views toward women, she goes beyond reporting discrimination in the man-oriented society or denying it itself. She admits her gender identity as a woman and she engages gender issue with an anticipation of addressing gender issue, hoping to divide the chunky walls between genders. Knitwork is purposefully utilized for it. It demonstrates all kinds of characteristics embedded in knitwork including its heat-retaining and aesthetically pleasing effects that comfort every beholder. It also turns into an object for viewer's contemplation as it engages viewers on the mystery of choosing knitwork as a medium, realizing as it turns out that it has a deeper meaning and philosophy behind it.
● Lastly, it is the aspect of knit as a tool for challenging the world in the series of process that the artist made the best of femininity and the efforts she made to conquer its limitation and division with the opposite sex. In addition, this also reflects her challenges toward artists she gives reverence and admiration. It made me wonder as to what are the tools for her to give them such recognition through her art work and I found out that it is through self-examination as she see herself to them and the generosity of her spirit.
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One cannot deny that it is noticeable in the title of the exhibition, Wrapping & Turning. It points to make a gradient on curved surfaces like shoulders as a term for knitwork. Wrapping & Turning is not something you simply keep on knitting in one way but a repetitive work. It may appear as though you knit ceaselessly and then you knit again after going back to the beginning point. It can easily turn out to be a failure whenever there is an error in the exact calculation that is needed. That is why a focused and careful mind is highly required to complete such a magnificent thing. The artist applies the same perspective toward this process to herself and to our lives, that we just have to go on and although at one point we do go back from where we began and we commit mistakes and errors along the way but we move on and hopefully finish a masterpiece in the end. In other words, even though every task requires meticulous planning and action, self examination needs to pave the way so that we obtain knowledge. Without looking back properly, progress might be harder to achieve. Moreover, she underscores a sort of warmth and magnanimity as two of the significant characteristics of her interpretation.
● These characteristics were underscored in the contrastive expressions intended by the artist. Putting it on other terms, it could be the same as to the mechanical vs. the hand-made or the most popular competition between male and female. For instance, Lee appropriated Marcel Duchamp's Readymades and Dan Flavin's industrial fluorescent light bulbs. In the Untitled-bicycle wheel/toilet wrapped with knit Duchamp's bicycle wheel and fountain Duchamp's Readymades embedded with anti-aesthetic, anti-art, and anti-custom values did fade and it is wrapped with snug threads as if attempting to embrace its cold traits. And how these threads could easily take away and ease chill. Industrial fluorescent light bulbs of Flavin, recognized as a master of Minimalism has hardly kept the practical qualities intended by him in the Untitled-Knitwork on Flourescent Lightbulb. Colorful threads cover it and the viewer comes to be infused with mild lights radiated through them as if looking at the stars and the constellations among the vast stellar space.
● According to Lee, she had never intended to degrade such reputable artists and their works, Duchamp and Flavin. And it is known to many if not all, that they are pivotal figures in contemporary art history. She dressed them up because she is being emphatic for the mechanical coldness of the figures in their works, this way she gives recognition to their works of art by providing genuine warmth by the use of thread. In the process of doing it, what she gained along the way is a challenge toward them and to make theirs into something her own.
● Lee's tool in her hands was a little thread bobbin, she understands the characteristics of threads as you can draw warmth from it, comforting you in times of damp cold; connectedness could be highly regarded as well, as to how each thread is weaved through altogether to create something based on a pattern; and its flexibility which enables the threads to turn into anything you want it to be. Like Ariadne's thread that served as a guide in a hardly recognizable dark path to death and oblivion, beyond its inherent function, Lee also suggests the suppleness of thread as a way of living in this world. That we could be wherever we want and we could surely get out in any way we have entered as long as we don't fail to examine ourselves and the path we have taken previously. She demonstrated that the soft and supple power of self-examination and broadmindedness is the strongest. I have learned a lot from Lee's work who enlightened me to recognize the irony of softness and suppleness like a philosopher.
■ Lee Chang-sook